


Separated, Never Separate

by Laughsalot3412



Series: Saints 'verse [1]
Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Agent Hendrickson is a jerk in all worlds, Gen, Gratuitous brother touching, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughsalot3412/pseuds/Laughsalot3412
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to common belief, Conner is not the level-headed one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separated, Never Separate

They brought him in on the case because he had “experience”. Hendrickson didn’t say what everyone was thinking—that no amount of experience would help on a case like that of Conner and Murphy MacManus. The FBI had run them to ground a month after their public execution of a mob boss, and two weeks after kicking Agent Smecker off the case for negligence. They were being held in Boston’s most secure police station, awaiting questioning.

“You have a thing for brothers, right?” Hendrickon’s boss had asked him. He’d smirked when he had handed over the case file. Hendrickson knew that people laughed about his obsession with the Winchesters behind his back, but he couldn’t give up the case. Not after they’d already gotten away from him twice.

He supposed that might count as experience.

Hendrickson had been in the Boston police station for about an hour, bullying the cops into upping security. There was a notable lack of excitement in the air for a group who had just taken down some of the FBI’s most wanted. Crazy Bostonites.

He had read their files a dozen times, and in his mind, had gone over his last interaction with the Winchesters for good measure. (What was it with serial killer brothers?) He felt ready to meet the MacManus brothers.

Later, he would realize he hadn’t been ready at all.

He could hear them before he saw them, their accent softening their voices, making their laughter sound hilarious instead of unsettling. Hendrickson wasn’t sure what they could find to laugh about in a jail cell.

“Sure an’ you’re fucking joking!”

“I’m not! Would I joke about something as serious as this, Murph?”

“Aye, you would, and you know it.”

“Well now, I suppose I would.”

“So you are joking?”

“I never said that, did I?”

Hendrickson turned the corner just in time to see Murphy MacManus push his brother off the small bench in their jail cell. They were easy to tell apart, even though they were twins. Conner MacManus—now on the floor, laughing—had an open, warm face. He looked like someone you could trust to be gentle with his large hands and solid bulk.

Murphy MacManus did not look gentle. He was all angles and sharp movements, quick and barely contained. Now, grinning down at his brother, he looked mischievous and dangerous, like one of those magical creatures the Winchesters claimed to hunt.

They were looking at each other, but when Conner spoke, it was to Hendrickson.

“I don’t think my brother should be so upset that our mam had me first, do you, sir?”

“Except that she didn’t actually say that and you’re a fucking liar!”

“Can’t prove it though, can you?” Conner said, his voice serene. His hands were cuffed in front of him, just like his brother’s, and he rested them on his stomach.

“The hell I can’t. I’ll call up mam and ask her.”

“How are you going to do that when we’re stuck in here, idiot?”

“We get a phone call. Prisoners always get one phone call, that’s the law.”

“We’re not going to use our one phone call to talk to mam in Ireland. You really are a fucking idiot.” Conner finally took his eyes off his brother and looked at Hendrickson through the bars. “He’s a fucking idiot,” he repeated, confidentially.

Boston police had taken their shoes—something about concealed weapons—and Murphy stuck his foot into Conner’s face, trying to cover his mouth with his dirty sock. “Am not!”

“Get off!”

Hendrickson had issues with not being taken seriously. His ex-wife had called it an “ego problem,” but Hendrickson didn’t see the problem with demanding the respect he deserved. Particularly from serial killers who appeared not to care the slightest that they were handcuffed inside a jail cell.

“You’re laughing pretty hard for two guys staring down a life sentence in prison,” Hendrickson said.

The smile Murphy gave him was not the one he had given his brother. This smile had knives in it. “Oh aye. Our mam always said we were a merry bunch.”

Conner had a hold of Murphy’s ankle with both of his cuffed hands. “It’s our charming personality. It sparkles in dire circumstances.”

“Well, it can sparkle in the interview room. I’m going to ask you some questions.”

“Sure,” Conner said, as if he had nothing to hide, as if he had never murdered anyone. He slapped his brother’s foot away and stood.

Murphy stood with him, shoulder to shoulder. They were a lot more intimidating like that, despite the smiles that still hung around the corners of their mouths. “Why can’t you ask us questions right here?” Murphy asked.

Conner nudged him. “Ne pas.”

“Étouffer. Je n'aime pas ce.” Murphy shrugged. “On se sent mal.”

“Oh, right,” Hendrickson said. “The language thing. Your files mentioned that. I’ll thank you to stick to a language we all can understand.”

Conner had changed his mind. “Why can’t you question us here?”

“Because I want to have your testimonies on tape, so that when you trip yourselves up in whatever lie you’ve created, I can re-watch it with popcorn.”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Murphy snapped. “Very, very funny.” He stepped closer to the bars. “You think you’re a big deal, don’t you? Think you’re smart?”

“You just need to look at the man to know it’s so,” Conner said, lightly knocking his shoulder against his brother’s. His voice was teasing and unconcerned, and Murphy turned towards it like it was his favorite song.

“Chailleann mé an fear eile.”

“Aye, well,” Conner said, “he was a special man.”

Hendrickson got it then. Conner was the level-headed one, keeping his impulsive brother in check with laughter and jokes and distraction. Left on his own, Hendrickson was pretty sure Murphy MacManus would have been throwing himself against the bars.

Always better to address the level-headed brother first. “You know, Conner, you could make this a lot easier on both of you if you just confessed.”

The man was looking at him with a faint smirk, like he knew what Hendrickson had been thinking. “Is that so? Pardon us if we don’t see how confessing that we killed a slew of people makes it easier.”

“Did you kill a slew of people?”

Murphy raised his arms above his head in a slow stretch. “Depends on what you mean by people.”

“Depends on what you mean by killed,” Conner said, and elbowed Murphy in the ribs.

Murphy slammed his own elbow into Conner’s side without looking at him. “We’ll answer your fucking questions,” he said.

“But we’ll answer them here,” Conner added, rubbing his side. “No cameras.”

They did it so well that Hendrickson almost missed the way they had shifted control of the conversation out of his hands. Hell, he had never really had control to begin with, except for those few seconds when he had gotten Murphy upset. The two of them were a fully-defended front. Another agent would have been swept up in it, would have gone along with the implicit rules they had set.

But Hendrickson had seen this before, and he heard the rules they weren’t saying. Maybe he did have experience after all.

“You’ll answer my questions when and where I want you to answer them,” he said. “Interview rooms, cameras. That’s how it’s going to be, boys.”

Murphy’s expression said, Can’t blame us for trying. “Will we get to take our handcuffs off?”

“No.” Hendrickson signaled to some of the policemen standing around. Four men in uniform walked up slowly. “Move smartass here to the interview room. I’m going to ask him a few questions.”

It didn’t take long for the men to understand that he was changing one of their unstated rules.

“Now wait just a second,” Murphy began, backing up away from the door, Conner moving with him. “I thought you wanted us to give our confession.”

“I do,” Hendrickson said. “Which is why I’ll be keeping you apart for a while.”

“What? Why?” Conner asked. They were against the wall now, like their tiny cell had become a safe place. “Why do you need to separate us?”

Hendrickson wanted to say, Because when you’re dealing with serial killer brothers, it’s the only threat that works.

But the Boston police were watching, so he said, “I’m just going to ask him some questions, that’s all. If he cooperates, there won’t be any trouble.”

It wasn’t a threat, but he knew the life the MacManus brothers had led. To them, it would sound like one.

The policemen had their guns out. Two of them got ready to unlock the cell. Hendrickson wondered if they were going to have to drag Murphy out.

The two men were having a muttered conversation in what might have been Russian. Murphy put his hand on Conner’s shoulder and gripped hard, then he stepped forward. He watched the policemen unlock the cell with hooded, secret-keeping eyes.

“This is a bad idea you’re having,” he told Hendrickson. He walked out of the cell, two of the guns pointed at him, two pointed at Conner. He stood beside Hendrickson and spoke quietly. “I’m telling you now, and I’m trying to save you pain. It’s a bad idea.”

Hendrickson almost laughed, because this? This was exactly what he had wanted. He wanted these men wrong-footed and vulnerable.

“You can threaten all you like,” Hendrickson told him, just as quietly. “It won’t change the facts of who has the power here.”

Murphy shook his head. The cell door clanged shut behind him.

In the cell, Conner MacManus sank onto the bench and began whispering under his breath. With his hands cuffed in front of him, he looked like he was praying.

 

 

 

“You’re the worst good man we’ve ever met,” Murphy grumbled.

“And here I thought we were starting to be friends,” Hendrickson said. “Was it the chains?”

Murphy was cuffed to the table in the interview room because Hendrickson wasn’t stupid. He looked pissed about it, tugging the chains every so often, just to be sure they still held. He glared at Hendrickson. The bright lights of the interview room showed the bruises on his hands and the paleness of his skin. The MacManus brothers had not come in quietly. “Just ask your questions.”

“All right,” Hendrickson said. “My first question is simple. Did you kill those people?”

“Sure,” Murphy said.

And just like that, the power spiraled out of Hendrickson’s hands again.

Murphy laughed sharply at the expression on Hendrickson’s face. “The whole thing in the courtroom was caught on television, and the rest isn’t exactly rocket science. We were just messing with you before.”

This…was not how Hendrickson had imagined this conversation going. “So you’re confessing?”

“Sure.” Murphy tugged at the chains again, impatient. “Are we fucking done?”

The goal was to get the confession. Of course it was. And he had gotten it, which meant he should have been satisfied.

But Hendrickson wasn’t, because he knew what this was all about. It was about Murphy MacManus getting to go exactly where he wanted—back with his brother in under ten minutes.

“You killed over a dozen people in one week,” Hendrickson said. Even saying it sent a buzz of righteous anger through his body. “Do you have any idea how much of a monster that makes you?”

“Fuck you!” Murphy snarled. He had a quick temper, and there was no brother around to coax him out of it. “You don’t know anything!”

“I know that you think you’re on some sort of mission from God,” Hendrickson said. “Doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible not to kill?”

“Of course it bloody well says that,” Murphy said. He was straining against his cuffs now, and his face was outraged. “You think we just pick random targets off the street? What are you, a psycho or something?”

“You think you did God’s will?” Hendrickson asked flatly.

Murphy’s face flushed, just a little. He shrugged, but he believed it. Oh, he did.

“You’re crazy,” Hendrickson said. He put his palms flat on the table. “I don’t know whether that make me feel better or worse.”

“I don’t care how it makes you feel! Are we done?”

“That eager to get back to your brother, huh?”

Murphy bared his teeth and said nothing.

“What happened to the old guy who was with you in the courtroom?”

“We parted ways.”

“Where did he go?”

“Don’t know. We didn’t ask.”

“Who was he?”

Murphy looked like he was remembering something not very pleasant. “He and Conner didn’t exactly see eye to eye. Probably because they were so alike.”

“Not what I asked.”

“I’m answering you!” Murphy insisted. “He was Conner, only without everything that makes him Conner.”

Hendrickson wanted to bang his head against the nearest wall. He had never seen two people so obsessed with each other. Even the Winchesters had been able to talk about other things sometimes.

It occurred to him later, much later, that Murphy had warned him twice.

Murphy was watching him with those dark, dangerous eyes. “Now are you going to knock me around a bit or can I go back to my brother?”

“You watch too much bad television,” Hendrickson said. He stood. “You’re staying here. I’m going to go talk to your brother alone.”

Murphy raised his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re the stupidest good man we’ve ever met.”

 

 

Conner MacManus was on his knees when Hendrickson got back. His lips were moving soundlessly, and lord almighty, he really was praying. Hendrickson had spent his whole adult life around criminals, and he knew that the appearance of strength was everything. They pretended they didn’t care, pretended they didn’t need anything or anyone, whatever they could do to make themselves invulnerable.

These two men were the opposite. They wore their weaknesses openly. They asked for each other, asked for kindness, asked for help from God.

He didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

Conner was looking up at him, his voice mild and curious.

“Oh, I did,” Hendrickson said. He added a bit of relish to his tone, just to make the other man wonder. “Murphy sings like a bird if you ask the right way.”

Conner’s eyes flicked over every inch of him, no doubt looking for blood on his hands or clothes. “And what way would that be?”

It felt good to have so much power. Hendrickson had never lied to himself—he liked that feeling. “Persuasively.”

Conner was up on his feet in one smooth motion. He curled his fingers around the bars and clutched them until his fingers turned white. “You’ve got to stop playing games with us,” he said shakily. “We heard the coppers talking about you, and we know you do good. But for the love of Christ, stop playing these fucking games before I forget all about that and commit a sin before the Lord.”

Hendrickson locked eyes with him. “Begging?” he said softly. “And here I thought you were a real tough guy.”

Conner rested his head against the bars. “We don’t want any trouble. We know we’re in for prison time, so throw us in our cell and be done with it.”

Again with that underlying assumption—the most basic assumption. Hendrickson looked at Conner’s pleading face and all he could think about was the fact that his victims had had families.

“What makes you think you two are going to the same prison?”

Conner stilled.

“You think we’re stupid or something?” Hendrickson asked. Poor gentle Conner. “You’re getting split up as soon as we take you out of here. There’s no slumber party waiting for you boys. Just solitary on different ends of the country.”

He didn’t see Conner’s punch until it caught him, two handed, in the throat.

Hendrickson couldn’t breathe—he couldn’t breathe. Everything swam in front of his eyes because the pain was blinding. He staggered backwards, dimly aware that Conner had exploded like a hurricane inside the cell, kicking at the door and yelling.

Yelling for his brother.

At the time, Hendrickson was too busy trying to breathe to consider important details. Details like: the station was small, and Murphy could most certainly hear his brother inside the interview room. Details like: the Boston police had never been pleased that these two men were in custody to begin with, and they wouldn’t risk death trying to keep them.

Details like: Conner MacManus was the strongest man he had ever met, and Conner MacManus was crazy.

There were shouts somewhere else, policemen running with their heavy booted feet. Backup would be here soon, and all Hendrickson had to do was breathe for a while.

A shot was fired, and Conner shouted, throwing himself repeatedly at the door, putting all his body weight behind it. Hendrickson watched him from where he had slumped against the opposite wall.

The cell door shook.

It was not supposed to do that.

Conner slammed into it again and again, and the shaking turned into groaning—the tired complaints of metal.

“Backup,” Hendrickson tried to say. It came out as a whisper. “Backup…”

Even if he had had a voice, he doubted anyone would have heard him over the commotion that was happening elsewhere in the station. There was shouting and cursing and, again, the sharp crack of a gunshot.

When had this gone so horribly wrong?

Hendrickson struggled to his feet and fumbled his handgun out of its holster. He leaned against the wall, breath whistling out of his aching throat.

The cell door shrieked. Hendrickson held the gun in a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking, and he honestly didn’t know exactly what he intended to do with it.

He was saved making the decision by the door to the cellblock bursting open to reveal Murphy MacManus, a standard issue pistol in one hand and another tucked under his arm.

“Drop it!” Murphy shouted at him, whipping the gun around to point at Hendrickson. “Kick it to my brother or I swear I’ll blow your head off!”

There were times not to be a hero. Hendrickson tossed the gun gently to the foot of Conner’s cell.

“Handcuff key!”

Hendrickson tossed it to Conner as well.

Murphy spun around to cover the doorway. “That’s right!” he roared. “Stay back, all of you!”

He sounded like a man possessed, and Hendrickson considered not blaming the chicken-shit Boston cops for not making a move.

Murphy kept his gun and his eyes trained on the cops that Hendrickson could not see. He took a breath and said, “Conner?” That one word was quiet and afraid and full of something Hendrickson did not understand.

He didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know what to do at all.

Conner was on the floor of the cell, reaching his arm through the bars to snag Hendrickson’s gun with his fingertips. He spared a second to smile at his brother’s back. “I’m just grand, Murph.”

Murphy’s shoulders eased a fraction. When he spoke again, his voice was back to hard, loud, and vaguely psychotic. “Then blast the fucking lock and let’s get out of here.”

Hendrickson found his voice at last. “Wait!”

Conner, free of the handcuffs, had the gun in his hand now. He aimed it at Hendrickson as though he liked the thought of shooting him. “It’d be better for everyone if you didn’t speak.”

“Shrapnel,” Hendrickson said. His voice rasped, but he was able to talk. “Dangerous. Don’t shoot.”

From the doorway, Murphy snorted.

Conner just laughed. “If you’re afraid, law man, you’d better hide your face.”

Then he shot the metal lock twice in rapid succession.

An angry fragment of metal buzzed close to Hendrickson’s ear and buried itself in the cinderblock wall. He hadn’t meant to close his eyes, dammit. When he opened them again, Conner was ramming himself into the door one last time, and it finally surrendered.

Conner tumbled to the floor, but was up before Hendrickson could act on the advantage. He aimed the gun easily in Hendrickson’s direction as he walked over to stand behind his brother. Whatever he saw over Murphy’s shoulder made him smile.

“Hello, boyos!” he called cheerfully. “Don’t you fret your pretty heads. We’ll be out of your hair soon and no one will be any the worse for it.”

“We hold the Boston police in the highest respect,” Murphy added. “As you’ll notice by the way I haven’t shot any of you yet.”

“Actually,” Conner said, lowering his voice, “that one looks a little bit shot, Murph.”

“Well,” Murphy amended, “not shot to kill, anyway. I’m sure that leg will heal up nicely.”

You would never believe that Conner MacManus had just knocked down a cell door practically with his bare hands. He looked like the level-headed brother again.

Hendrickson was beginning to realize that he wasn’t.

“We can’t just let you walk out of here,” a voice said from the hallway. Hendrickson didn’t recognize it. He could never be bothered with learning people’s names. This voice was desperate and tinged with a disturbing amount of hero worship. “Even if we wanted to. There are rules.”

“Aye, aye,” Conner said, nodding. “It would look bad.”

“Yes,” the voice said, sounding relieved. “We might all lose our jobs, Mr. MacManus. You understand.”

“Well now, I might have just the plan to help with this problem,” Conner said.

“You do?” Murphy asked, turning to look at his brother with alarm on his face.

“Oh, aye,” Conner said. He crossed the room quickly, and his strong, bleeding hands clamped around Hendrickson’s wrists. “We have a hostage.”

“We have a what?” Murphy yelped.

Conner pulled Hendrickson forward and shoved him toward the doorway, keeping the gun trained on his stomach. “If you lads in blue don’t let us walk out of here, we’ll do unspeakably horrible things to this fine agent here.”

Murphy grinned slowly, and Hendrickson knew he would have actual nightmares about that smile. “Oh yes,” he said, pitching his voice into the hallway. “I’m thinking of a few such things I can do right now. Things I’d like to do to a man who—a man like this.”

Hendrickson would have bet the pitiful sum of his divorce settlement that Murphy’s original words were going to be: “A man who made my brother scream for me.”

He was realizing now that might have been a tactical error on his part.

“Well, if you have a hostage, it looks like we have no choice!” The voice in the hallway sounded quite cheerful.

Hendrickson hated Boston. He would never get over how much he hated Boston.

“We’re coming out,” Conner said. “Be smart lads, now.”

One of them pushed Hendrickson into the hallway and shoved a cold metal gun barrel behind his head. They marched him in front with his hands up, and Hendrickson saw why Conner had smiled. The Boston PD was huddled behind overturned conference tables and chairs or peering around doorways. Except for the one man who did indeed look a little bit shot, there appeared to be no casualties. These two men had taken down an entire station using only the force of their reputation.

The envy Hendrickson felt at that thought did nothing to improve his mood.

They made it out of the station without a hitch. There were no police waiting in the parking lot, so obviously none of those morons had thought to radio for backup.

“Which car is yours?” Conner asked, nudging him to quicken his pace.

“The black sedan,” Hendrickson said flatly.

“Keys.”

Hendrickson handed over the keys to Conner. Murphy had his gun on him now, gripping the handle tightly, as though he’d rather be strangling him. The man still had another gun tucked under his other arm, and Hendrickson wondered fleetingly why he didn’t simply hold it.

The car started up with Conner at the wheel, and Hendrickson felt himself slump a little at the thought that this was over. This whole humiliating, terrifying, confusing experience was done.

“I’ll catch you, you know,” he said, just to say something.

Murphy gave him that lethal smile again. “I surely hope you do.”

“He’s coming with us.”

Conner was there, holding the roll of duct tape from Hendrickson’s backseat.

Hendrickson and Murphy spoke at the same time.

“Oh, hell no.”

“What the fuck?”

Conner taped Hendrickson’s hands together as he spoke. “If we don’t have him, they’re going to pounce as soon as we leave here. We need—”

“We are not bringing him along!” Murphy said.

Conner shoved Hendrickson in backseat and expertly taped his ankles together. When he was done, he faced his brother.

“We need—“

“But he—”

“Murph—”

“Fine!”

Murphy flung himself into the passenger seat, slamming the door. Conner got into the driver’s seat much more smugly and then tore out of the police parking lot.

 

 

Hendrickson had worked a kidnapping case a few months ago. The victim had been infuriatingly unhelpful, and Hendrickson might have snapped at him at few times. His ex-wife would have no doubt told him that this experience was a cosmic opportunity to gain some empathy. There was a reason why they were no longer married, however, and Hendrickson chose to spend his time mashed in the backseat of his own car to plot sweet revenge.

It couldn’t have been more than half an hour before they stopped. Hendrickson had expected them to want to get out of the city limits, but when Conner hauled him up, they were obviously still in Boston, just in a part he had never visited. The buildings were old and crumbling above him, and the streets were narrow and filled with garbage. A squat building made out of cement had the word “Motel” flickering in shoddy neon out front. Conner cut the tape on his legs with a knife Hendrickson recognized as his.

“Come on,” Murphy muttered. He had the gun out, but he wasn’t looking quite as fierce as he had thirty minutes ago. His left hand was tucked under his other arm. His skin was pasty and covered in sweat.

Hendrickson looked too long for Conner’s liking and got a sharp shove between his shoulder blades.

There was no one manning the dim reception area when they entered, and any hope of help Hendrickson had been nursing fell away. It was clear that the brothers knew this place. Conner snagged a key from a pegboard on the wall and led the way down a short hallway. The room he opened had clothes on the floor and empty beer bottles scattered on the window sill. There were two beds, both neatly made, and a desk chair that Conner shoved him into.

“You boys are really living in style, aren’t you?” Hendrickson said.

Conner was busy taping him to the chair and did not reply.

Murphy, his voice exhausted and very sincere, said, “Please keep talking. I want to kill you so fucking much, and it’s easier to work myself up to it when you talk.”

Hendrickson shut up.

Conner finished taping him to the chair and the three of them were quiet for a brief moment, taking a breath. Then, Conner rounded on Murphy.

“Now, let’s see to you.”

Murphy slumped on the edge of a bed. “I’ll see to your face,” he muttered.

Conner produced a first aid kit from beneath a pair of dirty jeans and settled himself on the bed next to his twin. “Come on. Give us a look.”

Murphy gingerly held his left hand out for Conner’s inspection. Hendrickson blinked, because this man had gotten them out of a police station with what appeared to be a broken wrist. His hand was twisted in an unpleasant angle, and it was red and swollen.

“Seriously, Murph? Again?”

Conner was apparently not the sympathetic type.

“I suppose you have a better way of slipping handcuffs, then? Because you’re such a fucking genius?”

“I am a fucking genius.” Conner examined the wrist critically, not making a move to touch it. “Same place as last time?”

“Aye. It wasn’t quite done healing. Made it easier to break.” Murphy spoke matter-of-factly, as if breaking his wrist to escape handcuffs was something he did frequently. “Do we still have the thing? The hand thing?”

Conner held up a plastic cast triumphantly. “Right, well, this is going to hurt like hell, so—”

Years of emergency training took over. Hendrickson said, “Tell me you aren’t going to try to set that bone yourself. Tell me you aren’t actually that stupid.”

Murphy closed his eyes briefly. “Con, I swear by all that’s holy…”

“Shut up,” Conner ordered Hendrickson.

“He needs a hospital!” he argued. And now he had an ulterior agenda, because patients at hospitals could be tracked, which meant they could be found.

“Americans,” Conner said dismissively. He slid off the bed, grabbed the roll of duct tape, and tore off a piece. “You get a splinter and it’s all , ‘Take him to hospital!’ Ridiculous.” Conner slapped the piece of tape over Hendrickson’s mouth without further ceremony. “Now shut up.”

“Thank you,” Murphy said.

Hendrickson focused on taking deep breaths through his nose. Thank god he had taken his allergy medicine that morning.

Conner sat on the bed across from Murphy again. He looked at his brother steadily and Murphy looked back, and everything just seemed to slow down. Hendrickson had seen people meditate before, and this was nothing like that, but the effect was the same. They created their own space where only they existed. He had never seen them so still.

They nodded at each other, as if they had been having a conversation and had reached a conclusion.

“Bite down on something,” Conner said.

Murphy pressed his body up against Conner’s right side, angled to still allow access to his wrist. He bent his head until it rested on his brother’s shoulder. Hendrickson could see the curve of Murphy’s back and the exposed nape of his neck, and the hard line of his right arm where it curled up behind Conner’s head. They twisted around each other like they had been born doing it, which maybe they actually had.

Hendrickson didn’t mean to stare, but he was hypnotized by their vulnerability and intimacy. He and Justine had been married for five years, and he was positive that they had never looked like that together. They were both rigid people, and their unwillingness to bend around each other had eventually resulted in an inability to do so. They had both fixed their own wounds, too afraid to allow someone else to touch their raw edges. The sight of Murphy’s wrist resting so easily in Conner’s hands made Hendrickson’s stomach twist as if he’d glimpsed the broken bones.

“Three,” Conner said and something crunched.

Murphy’s screams were swallowed in Conner’s shoulder. His right hand tangled in his brother’s light hair.

Conner worked quickly, wrapping the wrist and then strapping it inside the plastic cast. There was no hesitation that would have just prolonged the pain. All his movements were mercilessly efficient as he aligned the bones.

“Done,” Conner said, his breath coming in tight bursts. “God in heaven. We’re done.”

Murphy turned his head to rest his cheek on Conner’s shoulder, staring blankly at the motel wall. His lips were smudged red with blood, and Hendrickson thought he had bitten them until he saw blood on Conner’s shoulder too—just a little bit of blood, right where his neck and shoulder met.

Right. There was nothing psycho about these men at all.

Conner reached his arm around Murphy’s neck and squeezed. “All right there, Murph?”

“Just grand,” Murphy said. He blinked a few times, and the awareness crept back into his eyes. “I’m grand.”

“Good.” Conner smacked him on the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to bite me, you little shite.”

Murphy used his grip on Conner’s hair to yank his head back. “Says the one who almost bit my little finger off when we were ten.”

Conner whipped his head around to dislodge his brother’s grip. “It’s a lie! Everyone knows you’re the biter.”

“That’s not what Sophie James says.”

“You leave Sophie James out of this! And anyway, how would you know what Sophie James says?”

“Don’t you want to know?”

“Gah.” Conner tried to get his hand between their chests and shove Murphy off, but Murphy grabbed it with his good hand and held it tightly. He looked at the bloody knuckles there.

“Now, let’s see to you,” he said.

Conner grinned and patted his cheek. “Such a tender and compassionate brother. Like a mammy with a wee babe.”

Murphy slapped his hand away and untangled himself from Conner. He was holding his broken wrist away from his body, and this whole time Conner had been careful not to hit it. “I feel like your mam,” he groused. “We had a plan, Conner. We were going to confess everything and do our time. Then suddenly you’re bellowing like a calf away from its herd and I had to come find you.”

“The plan might have changed a bit,” Conner acknowledged.

Murphy ripped open an alcohol swab with his teeth and scrubbed at Conner’s hands, washing away the blood. “This is a better plan. I can’t say I was pleased to be spending the rest of our lives in a cell.”

“It wasn’t going to be one cell,” Conner said. “It was going to be two. In different prisons.”

Murphy glanced up from his work to give Hendrickson a particularly nasty glare. “Fuckers.”

Conner tried to rub his face with his hands, but Murphy kept hold of them and opened a new swab. “I might have lost my temper a bit, Murphy.”

“Did you now?” Murphy said drily. “I’m shocked. You, losing your temper?”

Conner watched Murphy’s administrations with a subdued air. “Maybe we should—”

“Aye, we should. I’m almost done here. You ripped most of your fingernails clean off, you crazy bastard. Help me with the gauze.”

It was fascinating to watch them work, Conner with his left hand and Murphy with his right. They wrapped Conner’s fingers, their hands deftly weaving in and out, tying knots and holding ends.

“I’m not the crazy bastard who broke his own wrist. Twice,” Conner was saying.

“You were calling for me,” Murphy said, like Conner was being stupid. “What else was I going to do?”

“Fucking idiot,” Conner said fondly.

They were done patching each other up, and they scooped all their supplies back into their kit. They stood and stretched carefully, testing out their tired muscles. Then they tugged on boots and threw on their jackets.

They were leaving. Hendrickson didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or panicked.

Conner noticed something in his face. He seemed to have forgiven Hendrickson now that he and his brother were back in the same room.

“We’re off to mass. It’ll just take an hour. Try not to tip over or anything.”

Murphy laughed, probably as much at Hendrickson’s shocked face as at the comment. “What? We’re God-fearing men. Plus, we missed this morning thanks to a certain person picking us up off the street.”

Conner slapped Hendrickson on the shoulder, maybe a little harder than necessary. “See you in a bit. While we’re away, try to decide which of us you want as a bunkmate tonight. It’s true that Murphy is younger, but he bites, so—”

The rest of his speech was lost as Murphy rammed him through the open doorway and slammed the door behind them. Their scuffling and mingled laughter echoed down the hallway until they left the building. Hendrickson breathed in deeply through his nose. The air felt calmer without the MacManus brothers around, like it had lost a static charge.

They would be back. Hendrickson had been chasing them for a week and he hadn’t even known this motel existed, so he wasn’t counting on the Boston PD showing up to the rescue.

He was pretty sure Conner had been joking about the bunkmate thing.

Pretty sure.

**Author's Note:**

> "Ne pas.” (Don’t.)
> 
> “Étouffer. Je n'aime pas ce.” (“Shut up. I don’t like this.”) Murphy shrugged. “On se sent mal.” (“Bad feeling.”)
> 
>  
> 
> “Chailleann mé an fear eile.” (I miss the other guy.)
> 
>  
> 
> Hello all! Is it still cool to write BDS fic? And yes, for all my SPN fans, it is THAT Agent Hendrickson :)


End file.
